Barefoot Pirate (4 page)

The magic must be working already, she thought. Making him
act decent. Yeah. That has to be it; kids in her experience never acted
friendly, or nice. Wherever she went, it was like she came with an invisible
sign on her forehead saying
Pick on me!

So all she had to worry about now was getting away from the
Evanses safely.

Through every class Nan tried to think about what—if
anything—she should take along. In all the magic stories she’d read, the lucky
kids who got to go always disappeared at once. Well, here she was, with hours
to plan for—and she couldn’t think of much that she’d want from this world.
That she had, anyway.

Instead, her mind went straight to daydreams and plans about
what she’d do once she got there. First thing, of course, was to rescue that
Prince, because that was what they were being brought for. Then...learn some
magic, and change herself from being ugly. Then she’d get a roomful of gorgeous
dresses to wear with her beautiful new face. And then she’d make a huge castle,
all for herself, her rich belongings, and her pets, for she’d have a million of
them. Any stray she saw would be instantly adopted, and she’d never again have
to ask anyone’s permission.

Or did they have dogs and cats? Nan didn’t know, but if she
had magic, she could always bring some from Earth. She’d eat what she wanted,
when she wanted, and travel where she wanted, and no one ever, ever, EVER would
tell her what to do, ever again.

And she would only come back if she had lots and lots of
power. She’d only come back if she could get revenge. She enjoyed thinking
about REALLY being able to sweep down on the Evanses, and the Wheelwrights,
who’d been ten times worse, and all the other places she’d been forced to stay
after her mother left her in a park when she was just a year old, and
disappeared. Making thunderstorms and hurricanes happen inside their
houses—taking all
their
belongings so they’d have to be poor and hungry,
and see how they liked it. All those old, familiar thoughts sped through her
mind, making her shiver with delight.
I’ll really be able to do it
!

Picturing the results scared her a little. Is that breaking
my promise? No, she told herself. She’d just be teaching them a lesson. That,
and warning them just what might happen if they picked on any kid again. Yeah.
Thinking of it that way made it feel pretty good. She’d be protecting some
future kid forced to stay with them...

Thinking things like that got her painlessly through the
rest of the day.

o0o

“Gonna come to basketball practice tomorrow?” the voice cut
through the incredible noise on the bus, and invaded Joe’s thoughts.

He looked up into the familiar, tanned face of Terry Cowan, his
best friend.

Ex best friend, Joe thought silently.

“Wake up, Robles,” Terry said, poking him. “Whadya do, stay
up all night watching those dumb pirate movies on TV last night?”

Joe fought back the old embarrassment and said, “You used to
watch them, too.”

Terry snorted. “Yeah. When I was nine, and didn’t know any
better. Listen, we need someone who’s fast on the court, and I know your mom
finally let you off the hook with those trumpet lessons. Look, you’re really
good, so, why don’t you join the team?”

Joe studied Terry for a moment. Familiar face—turned into a
stranger. Joe still couldn’t believe how much Terry had changed. They used to
do everything together, riding all over town on their bikes just having fun,
video games, drawing pictures of superheroes, and planning how to fight mega-villains
with the powers they’d get after finding mysterious artifacts.

Until one day Terry suddenly said all that stuff was
babyish, stupid, and why didn’t they try out for b-ball that summer?

Joe stared at Terry. Words about the book, the magic, flowed
through his brain, to die before they were spoken. Three years ago, Terry would
have listened.

Joe shook his head. No use thinking of that.

Terry wrinkled his forehead. “Hey. Why do you look like
that? You sick or something?”

“Nah. Tired, that’s all,” Joe said. Not real, he’d said.
It’s not real, it’s babyish. If I told him about the book now, he’d probably
say the same thing.

“Well, what about basketball practice?” Terry persisted.
“Will you come?”

Joe shrugged. He didn’t care about basketball one way or another.
It was fun to play when he was playing it, but he forgot about it as soon as he
was off the court. “If I’m around, I’ll come,” he said finally.

“See ya tomorrow,” Terry said, grinning in triumph.

o0o

Nan raced through the afternoon chores, reveling in the
fierce joy she got when thinking, this is the last time I’ll ever have to do
THAT stupid job. She forced herself to sit still during dinner, then she raced
through the evening chores.

Alone in her room at last, she packed an extra change of
clothes into her school bag. She didn’t want to take any of those ugly thrift
store clothes, picked to be sturdy through many washings and not for looks or
fashion, but she didn’t know if the magic would put them right with Blackeye,
or if they’d have to travel a ways first.

Bed time was worse than the long dinner hour. Staring at the
clock moving slowly was horrible, so she read the little book all the way
through again. That used up time. Finally, finally, eleven o’clock came, and
the sound of the TV from the Evanses’ bedroom ended. The house was asleep.

At eleven thirty she slid the little brown book into the
bag, along with her reading flashlight and the extra set of batteries she’d
bought just a week ago.

She sat down to wait for the half-hour before midnight.

o0o

“What do you think you’re doing?” Mar Tee’s voice ripped
out at Joe, and he whirled around.

His sister stood in the kitchen door, grinning at having
caught him.

Joe swallowed a strong desire to punch her, and he shrugged.
“Sneaking some hot chocolate. So?”

“What’re all those cans on the counter for?”

“Because I was looking for another brand, big nose,” Joe
said impatiently. “Why don’t you go take a hike?”

Mar Tee grinned nastily. “You make some for us both, with
LOTS of whipped cream, and maybe I won’t go tell Mom.”

“Nice try, but I’ve been blackmailed by you before. Remember?”

Her grin changed to her usual mean look. “You’re supposed to
be in bed—” Mar Tee started.

“So are you,” Joe cut in swiftly.

“I’ll say you woke me up with your noise. After all,
my
room is right overhead.”

“So go get in it, Martha,” Joe shot back.

Mar Tee opened her mouth, closed it, then whirled around and
disappeared. He heard her footsteps pounding in the direction of the stairs,
and knew she was going straight up to tell their parents. Not that Dad would
care. He worked all day, he came home, watched TV, then slept. Work, TV, sleep.
All he wanted was quiet.

Joe swiftly shoved into his backpack all the food he’d
selected, leaving a nice clean counter. If their mother did come down, she
wouldn’t see any hot chocolate, or anything else. And that was all she cared
about.

Grinning, Joe ran softly up the stairs two at a time,
pausing only to listen for voices in his parents’ room. Sure enough, Mar Tee
was in there, tattling away.

He shoved his backpack under the bed, yanked off his
clothes, and got under the covers. Presently he heard the creak of the
floorboards outside his room, and the door opened. His father stuck his head
in, said nothing, then withdrew and shut the door. Low voices. Mar Tee’s whine,
“But he
was
.”

Then Mar Tee’s door slamming, more creaks, then silence.

As the silence lengthened, it filled with more subtle
sounds. The bump and rattle of the furnace in the basement—the muted murmur of
the TV in his parents’ room. Benny’s breathing.

Joe slid out of bed and stood gazing at his little brother.
He looked so small there, sleeping with his fingers curled. Joe’s heart
squeezed. He bent and kissed Benny’s cheek.

Remembering what some teacher had said once about people
hearing things unconsciously, he bent close again, and whispered in his
brother’s ear: “Hang tough. You can do it.
Make
Mom listen to you!”

Benny shifted, murmuring something unintelligible, and
turned away.

“I’ll try to come back. See if you want to go. Heck, you can
even bring Jordan.”

Benny thrashed about, and Joe stopped talking, afraid his
brother would wake up. He stood quietly, hardly daring to breathe, and soon the
little kid’s breathing was deep and even again.

Joe stepped back soundlessly, then looked around the
familiar objects in his room. All those pictures he’d made of imaginary places,
taped up on his walls. The books he’d collected. Everything ghost-lit by the
rising moon through the window.

Time to go.

He picked up his shoes, his coat, and his backpack, eased
the door open, and tiptoed down the stairs.

He paused on the landing to listen just once more. Silence.

He pulled his jacket and shoes on, his gloves ready in his
pockets. Then he opened the front door, careful to make sure the knocker didn’t
tap. Hunching into his coat against the icy outside air, he carefully eased the
door shut.

Then he started to run.

Running like that when the temperature must be about a
million below zero made Joe’s mouth and lungs ache like fire, but he didn’t
slow until he reached the corner across from the school.

There he stopped, trying to quiet his noisy breathing, and
scanned back and forth so sign of the police who usually cruised the area for
gangs and vandals.

Glad his jogging shoes were silent, he crossed the street
fast. Then he came the surprise: the gate was locked. Of course, stupid.

He stood with his gloved fingers curled in the chain link,
and tried to review the other entrances to the school in his mind. Then a
ghostly figure appeared in the dark hallway just inside the gate.

“Climb over,” came Nan’s voice in a low, urgent whisper.
“Fast. The cops come around every few minutes.”

Joe shoved his toe into a chain-link square and clambered
up. The unmelodic
ching
of the fence under his weight seemed as loud as
a bomb in his ears. Soon as he got to the top he jumped over. Landing lightly,
he looked this way and that. Nothing.

“We can see the moon from the quad, just barely,” Nan said
in a low voice. “It’ll be behind the library soon.”

“Library—” Joe repeated, walking fast beside the wraith-like
girl. “Don’t you think we should return the book to the library before we go?”

Nan shook her head violently.

“Why not? We’d be stealing it otherwise, and besides, why
not give some other kid a chance to go? I mean, if it works,” he corrected
himself self-consciously.

“Did you leave a note?” Nan asked.

“What?” he asked, confused by the abrupt change of subject.

“A note. At your—your home.”

“Nah,” Joe said, feeling even more self-conscious. “I mean,
I considered it, but they wouldn’t believe it anyway.”

“Good,” she said. “I didn’t, either. I don’t want to risk
anyone coming after us. If they find the book, and put it together with us, and
say the spell, they might come just to force us back.”

Joe hadn’t thought of that. The bitterness in her voice made
him feel uncomfortable.

“Look,” he said. “Have you really thought about this? Not
about leaving, but about what we might be going
to
.”

“What do you mean?” she demanded, in a
not-particularly-friendly voice. “You’re not afraid they’ll turn out to be
squid-people, or something?”

Her tone said:
You’re scared.

Joe bit back a nasty retort. “Not likely.” He shrugged.
“Because squids live undersea, and these guys sail ships. Also, I can’t see a
centaur teaming up with squids.”

She made a muffled snort, almost a laugh.

“Of course, we may be in for some weird foods. Which is why
I brought some chili and stuff, just in case. Until we could get magic to make
us some of ours, or whatever.”

“So what’s your problem?” she said.

“It’s not mine, it’s, well, ours. If we both go. And I want
to,” he added hastily, when he saw her stiffen up. “But rescuing somebody—well,
this place doesn’t sound like pretty unicorns and fairies and—”

“Let’s. Go,” she cut in. “Now. Before
anything happens to
stop us
.”

Joe shrugged, biting back a medium-hot reply of his own.
We’re in this together, he reminded himself. So maybe one of us should act
decent.

Nan stuck out her hand, a jerky movement that was somehow
both wary and aggressive. “So we don’t get separated. In case it’s like a
whirlwind, like in some of the stories.”

“Oh. Yeah. Good idea,” Joe said.

Her hand was thin, with callused palms and rough knuckles.
She gripped his fingers with an uncompromising toughness, then said, “Let’s do
the words together.”

“Right. Uh, Narnday-ell,” he stumbled over the word, feeling
suddenly even more foolish.

Right beside him, Nan said smoothly, “Narndael en arnda hyt
teldehr ehr...” As if she’d practiced a hundred times.

Reassured, Joe gabbled the rest of the line in order to catch
up with her, then he matched her speed and pronunciation on the second saying.
On the third, he heard tension entering her voice, and he felt cold all of a
sudden. Very cold. It’s not working...

“Teldehr ehr!” they finished.

And Joe’s brain said
Nothing happened
while his eyes
registered a completely different scene.

Instead of night, and the familiar school quad, they stood
in dusk on a sandy beach. Deep blue ocean stretched to the horizon. Just as Joe
thought
We blew it, and we’re now in California
, something brilliantly
golden splashed from the seawater and jetted upward into the sky, crying on
fluting high notes. Joe made out the shapes of long, streamer-tailed birds
before they disappeared against the indigo sky.